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Do you feel like you want to make a difference in your life? In other lives?

“Growth mindset” is a popular term these days that we are seeing plastered all over social media. But, what does it mean exactly and how do we achieve it? At its face-value one might just think it means to read more. But in my work and research as a trauma therapist and compassion and resiliency researcher, intellectually understanding through reading something is only the tip of the iceberg. You can read a lot, and still understand very little about the world. Consider heartbreak as an example. You can read about broken relationships, but that wouldn’t necessarily cultivate an understanding as rich as if you have gone through the experience of heartbreak.

In order to create lasting change, we need to embody an understanding, through our experiences. Really feel it to our core. Take our learning from an intellectual understanding to one of embodiment. This is a much deeper dive….below the tip of the iceberg lies 90% of the ice. Literally change our cellular structure and course correct our nervous system. (Which by the way is a trainable, teachable skill that we can do.)

“We find comfort among those who agree with us, and growth among those who don't.” —Frank A.Clark

Read that again, slowly.

After reading that quote, notice how you feel? Does it spark a nerve? Or excitement? A challenge? Or a reluctance?

Can you reach across the aisle to a Republican or a Democrat and invite them in? Without “I’m right!” and “you’re wrong!” Intellectually, we get it. This is pedantic and silly. We intellectually realize that we are all humans underneath our belief systems and are all “on the same team.” But can you dive underneath the intellectualizing and embody it? Can you feel relaxed in your nervous system when you are engaging with someone who has radically different viewpoints? Can you agree to disagree, but also feel relaxed, calm, stable, without judgement, and attachment?

The CBCT® Cognitively-Based Compassion Training is helping people across the world reach across the aisles with compassionate understanding. It is an internationally recognized training program promoting health, healing, wellbeing and equanimity. It is being taught in school systems, hospitals, veterans programs, medical residency programs and more.

It is rooted in research and neuroscience which is radically advancing how we understand our minds. With the promise of neuroplasticity, in the last decade and a half, we are beginning to fully comprehend the potential of the human brain to form new neural pathways and regenerate, literally changing its structure in response to experience.

As a Level I SE™ practitioner of trauma and resiliency, digging even deeper than CBCT® the research shows how we have the inherent ability to bring our nervous system back into homeostatic balance. We can train in a growth mindset right down to our nervous system. The potential for growth is astonishing and I see it happen every day with my patients. Surpassing post-traumatic events, and relinquishing stuck residual trauma in their cells.

“Trauma is a fact of life. It doesn't have to be a life sentence.” —Dr. Peter Levine

What is Cognitively-Based Compassion Training?

A set of six wellness meditation modules that can be utilized as a set of skills used in your everyday life.

Resets the natural balance of our mind, body, and spirit if you will, to its natural unbiased, non-judgmental default mode.

Can be used by individuals for deep and lasting self-care, therapists, doctors, nurses, interagency helpers, corporations, executives, teachers, parents, churches, politicians, change agents of any kind. It is being used on systematic and/or community levels.

We call it “CBCT®” for short.

CBCT® skills are easy to learn!

You don’t have to be a professional helper to take it.

It is accessible to all people of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds and all faiths.

It is useful in all contexts of one’s life. In the office, at home, at church, or on the soccer field.

You have access to course materials, meditations, updated research, and more through an easy to use app.

CBCT® uses a Resiliency-Focused Strategy

It has identified with the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the best practices proven to build resiliency at both an individual and systematic level.

It seeks to proactively, rather than reactively, instill a strategic plan to heal our current system culture from the effects of stress, trauma, anxiety, loneliness, depression and a host of other mental and physical health concerns.

It provides you a useful language that you can easily and readily adopt into your everyday life. It gives you working tools and an embodied skill set for resiliency that you can immediately incorporate into your own life as well as the environments that you function in, i.e. family, church, activities, work, school, community.

It aims to restore the health of the entire system, community, or culture by promoting and cultivating health, well-being and a sense of inner confidence in ongoing ways through a ripple effect.

A growth mindset through CBCT® expands our resiliency zone.

Our resiliency zone is essentially the area where we feel most confident and capable. We can handle the ordinary ups and downs of a day without being thrown out of our nest. Unfortunately, on many days, there is an event or two that triggers your nervous system and throws you out of your comfort zone of resilience. How long your nervous system feels over or under activated as a result of that event, such as your boss yelling at you, depends on your training. This is where we all have a choice. What are we training in?

If you would like to train in CBCT® you can learn more here or register for the next course beginning this April.